Just stopping by to give everyone some information on what we have coming this year and some insight on the direction we are going.

Cooperative Competition: Co-opetition!

Come test your mettle in the Proving Grounds. This May we’ll be releasing two new cooperative competition zones that allow groups of up to six to compete against each other in timed races to see who can complete the zones’ challenges first. The fastest times for each round, currently set for seven days, are recorded on a leader board for everyone to ohh and ahh at (and try to beat) until the round ends. The fastest group in each round could possibly win an extra set of rewards, and the acclaim of all their peers. Rewards can be claimed from the victory merchant located in the Proving Grounds lobby. You can bet there will be some Best in Slot items available here to earn for everyone who wants to participate.
Proving Grounds utilize the battleground server technology to allow all players within a region to compete with or against each other. The first of these will be available starting on May 2 with GU103: The Menagerie.

Fallen Gate – New TLE Server

We’re going to be unlocking a new TLE server this year, Fallen Gate. This server will differ from Stormhold, as there won’t be voting and expansion content will open automatically every 12 weeks. There will be an exact schedule for this and you will know exactly what day each expansion will go live. As we get closer to release we will have more information, but we wanted to talk a bit about Heritage Quests on this server. As a benefit for those who play on the new server, so finishing Heritage Quests on Fallen Gate will unlock some cool rewards for your characters on the regular servers. In addition, there are lots of new achievements, titles, and rewards to be earned here for those who are interested.

Kunark Ascending Epilogue Quest

Anyone who has completed their epic 2.0s will have access to this quest and event, which will show them how the story for this expansion wraps itself up (and possibly even some clues as to where we are going). Oh, and everyone who completes the epilogue quest, gets this little gem.

New Kunark Ascending Heritage Quest

Speaking of Heritage Quests, we’ve added a new one in the upcoming game update. This quest series has a Heroic portion that grants a new Heritage item, and an Epic portion that will upgrade the item players received.
Interested adventurers should search within Obulus Frontier for clues on how to begin this new quest. Good hunting!

Summer Ethereal Events

Summer Ethereals are coming. Without giving too much away, there will be a new Best in Slot cloak that will be able to be earned, and there should be some cool new mechanics involved in getting this awesome item. An orange adornment slot will be ready for some very powerful effects will also be available during this event.

Familiars!

Experts in the mysterious menagerie have discovered a subspecies of creatures that have been found to increase the master’s ability to channel greater power.

System-wise that means these creatures will primarily focus on over-cap stats, such as Fervor, Crit Bonus, etc. They can be collected and added to a sticker book in your character pane that will display the first 20 familiars. Familiars are not a controllable pet, and may be hidden if the owner wishes to do so. You may only summon one familiar at a time, but you may use any familiar you own as an appearance familiar. Familiars will be found from many sources within Norrath.

First, while the passive deity abilities have been very successful in giving players something that their experience can always be used on, the gap in power for those that have been investing in the abilities is growing beyond what we wanted to see. We’ll be updating Divine Potency and Divine Crit bonus to have a diminishing returns curve in the next few weeks. This will go simultaneously with a reduction in mitigation on many Kunark Ascending heroic and raid encounters, so the overall impact on actual damage dealt should be negligible for players with over 30 points in Divine Potency or Crit Bonus, and a net gain for players with less than 30 points in those abilities.

Second, account wide passive deity abilities is still being worked on to be an upcoming feature, where your alts on live servers will benefit from the highest level of each of the passive deity abilities. We do not have an ETA locked down just yet, but it is pretty high on our priority list.

Class Balance Updates

In the upcoming expansion, we’ll be doing a major revamp of class balance focusing on bringing each class back into line with their intended roles. Specific areas of focus will be tier 1 DPS classes that are not performing as well as desired, and more support buffs and debuffs for several healer classes and expanded support for enchanters and bards.

Level 100 Character Boost

To help any of our returning players jump right into Kunark Ascending we will be granting all accounts a claimable level 100 boost bauble, from May 2nd through May 15th. This bauble will set a character to level 100, and grant a crate of gear so they can jump right into the start of Kunark Ascending and the Proving Grounds.

Epic 2.0 Faction Bauble – Guise of Pursuit

Once you have completed an Epic 2.0 quest on any character, you will now be able to purchase the Guise of Pursuit for your alternate characters on the same account. This bauble will raise all of the factions required for any of the Epic 2.0 quests to max level so that you may bypass any of the faction requirements on that character. If you did the work to get your new epic, here is a way to help along your alts. The Guise of Pursuit will be available on May 2nd, with GU103: The Menagerie.

AMA on Live Servers April, 26th , 27th and 28th!

We will be on live servers conducting an Ask Me Anything. These will be in General Chat on each server. The current schedule is:

April 26th – Thurgadin – 10:30AM–11:30AM PDT

April 26th – Antonia Bayle – 3:30PM–4:30PM PDT

April 26th – Halls of Fate – 4:30PM–5:30PM PDT

April 27th – Isle of Refuge – 3:30PM–4:30PM PDT

April 27th – Maj’Dul – 4:30PM–5:30PM PDT

April 28th – Skyfire – 3:30PM–4:30PM PDT

April 28th – Stormhold – 4:30PM–5:30PM PDT

We’re really looking forward to expansion 14 and we will release more info later this year. In the next expansion, we will be raising the level cap this year to level 110. We feel the destination finally warrants it! Expect to see lots of bonuses over the summer for preparing for the increase, including our Gear Up, Level Up promotions.

Comments (48)

Mizgamer62

I am hopeful yet skeptical. It all sounds good, but I guess we will just have to see how it all plays out. I just fear it is to late to bring the many people back that have already left the game. I know my server Antonia Bayle is oh so dead.

Mizgamer62

Kruzzen

Honestly I really do not want a lvl boost to 110. That is just gonna invalidate so much work it is not even funny. Gone will be all spells we have worked so long to level up. And here they set epics would last for 2 years, I just think this is gonna make a mess.

zzzz's

I don’t want the level boost either and this just might be the straw that breaks the camel’s back for me. Gone will be all the GM’s I worked so hard to acquire and once again more P2W for those who are willing or can afford to BUY all their spell upgrades. Just another money grab on DB’s part. I seriously doubt there will be much of a chance to acquire those upgrades in game. And how many months will it take to upgrade by researching? IMO….this level 110 news SUCKS!!!

Brad

Noctew

I remember the outrage when EoF didn’t raise the level cap, and when AoD didn’t raise the level two expansions in a row, and now players complain when the level is) raised?

Yes, some of your accomplishments will be invalidated. But that happens every expansion, whether the level is raised or not. The level up/gear up treadmill is what RPGs are all about.

Yes, you may have paid for some of those Grandmaster upgrades, but that was your personal choice. Most of the players are perfectly happy with only using research or using the SC members get for free anyway to pay for spells. Heck, even Unreal raiders (WW #1 guild) are not 100% Grandmaster everything.

Fact is, a level increase gives the devs the chance to rebalance gear and classes and have progression without using increasingly obscure stats like Crit Chance (well, you alway get a crit so now it increases your chances of mythically critting) or Resolve. And they appear to be dedicated to this. Kander wrote in Discord chat that they decided to cut features from the next expansion to give them the dev time to do it right. (I guess by features they mean something like Tithe or Merc Gear, not content.)

Plus, crafters will benefit. I always feel better when, as an armorer, I actually get new armor receipes or new scout spells as a jeweler instead of a generic receipe dump which is the same for all TS classes.

Noctew

Quelaag

I’ve always been against level increases. Different people have different opinions on these things. I have no problem with a new tier of gear and the balance changes that come with level increases, but I hate having to actually level. A lot of that has to do with how the game system are set up, specifically replacing old skills and how the game delivers experience. (Mostly by forcing you to grind something or another)

Right now the current dev team seems focused on causing as much grinding as possible which makes me fear for what 10 new levels means, 95-100 is already a nightmare to get through. Doing 95-100 twice or even three times would be enough to make me have zero interest in hitting end game.

Lucus

people that complained about lack of level increases are not the same people that dislike level increases.

ascension itself could be considered a level increase that isn’t as bad as a hard reset like the original adventure levels.

i’d vastly prefer an ascension level cap raise that instead of giving you generic ascension abilities for the next tier anyone can get,

gave you abilities/augmenetation buffs that are based on your existing class abilities (some with shared cooldowns) that have an ascension flair to them.

imagine if you had a mystic/defiler geomancer that got a replacement for their single target ward that when the target of the ward is hit they ge a small number of triggers, that when they attack an enemy they proc crushing damage for example.

Griffonlady

There have been level increases since lvl 50 was max. o.0 How is this unexpected?

If it’s not a level cap increase, it’s some new fangled thing like assention or a new page/type of AA or something. There’s got to be some sort of increase somewhere or people get bored, leave the game, and the game closes. They alternate between lvl cap increase and something else already.
If you don’t want to reach the new cap, don’t. It’s a game, you can play any where at any level with or without top-of-the-line gear. If you want to play only end game content with the best gear and spells, that’s great too, just expect to continue the effort every few months to a year if you are playing a live game.
I don’t understand why people beg for every thing to stop progress just because they don’t want to grind or farm again. If you want a game where you grind like crazy to be the best and that’s the end, play a console RPG for a while to get that out of your system (or get a portable system just for when you are AFK… hell, I play a DS and a game on my phone WHILE playing EQ2… and doing my homework… >.> ADHD might be my middle name…) and comeback when you want a “live” game again. Online multiplayer games have to change something every few months or they sunset due to bored players. Some people just want a strait forward lvl grind, so every other year or so they pop one of those in. Some people don’t like lvl grinding, so they only do it every other year or so and for a while it was only 2 to 5 levels (which was actually annoying to me since getting tiers in chunks fouled a lot of the patterns I’d gotten used to, like crafting/harvestables. lol But change is necessary to shake things up and keep people interested. /shrug Also, it’s a pain in the ass to have all these different levels of gear pour in at the same level. Would be nice if there was a “sort by expansion” filter in the recipe book, especially when they “shake things up” with titles of recipe books.)

I love how the new attitude isn’t “Whoot! New stuff with better stats”, it’s “Oh no, all my old stuff won’t be any good any more! I wanted the game to stop evolving for me so I could bask in my own glory for ever!”
Nothing changed aside from a bit more “Pay-for-convenience/speed”. Wish they’d just have more perks to attract paying subscribers instead of these quasi-PTW ideas. Fluff for $ is fine, but people start getting weird when $ is involved in the more game-affecting stuff, even if it’s just common sense that the game will go on and those spells and items will become obsolete each year (or 6ish months with GUs).

How about cross server travel for subscribers?

Maybe a set of dungeons that members can buy keys for, using status, plat (we desperately need to do something about that inflation any way), or loyalty tokens that drops one cash shop item per day (or DBC in small amounts once per day) and a 1 in 200 chance at a krono?

A cool way King’s Isle makes money without directly affecting the game is an optional button on their HUD (option to turn on in their options tab) and when a player opts-in and clicks the button, an add pops up. When the ad gets to the end it gives 10 of their cash shop currency (like DBC, but they call it “crowns”). They profit via the companies that pay them to run their adds, and players get free currency for the cash shop. (and the player doesn’t even need to have sound on or be on the tab/window. Just have to hit “accept” or other confirmation that you want your currency.)

There are heaps of ways to make money off a game without adding pay-for-convenience or pay-to-win. (Glad this game hasn’t gotten into the real pay-to-win stuff yet. Hope they never do. Speeding up or skipping stuff is one thing(and is a brilliant way to market when the people with money are usually too busy to grind because they are too busy grinding IRL to make $$. You are basically just selling time via boosts and skips, while not excluding any one), but when there is no way to play top tier content without spending a lot of money, that is real pay-to-win… and it’s not pretty. (PLay Perfect World to end game content an see what I mean. It’s the only PTW game I’ve ever played and it’s the last one I’ll ever go any where near.)

Mizgamer62

Kruzzen

Wow, have you ever thought about trying to be succinct. I simply stated I am opposed to the idea of a level increase. I am not a pay to win person, I work hard to get the upgrades I have including a lot of time waiting on the researcher. I would much rather see other ways of increasing power as compared to a level increase from 100 to 110. I have never found that system to be helpful as it just greys out zones. yes, the game has changed a lot and yes things need to be rebalanced and no I am not gonna quit over it. I don’t like level increases and that is that. No need to write a book about it.

EQ3orGoAway

Mizgamer62

Why do we have to wait until the next expansion for them to balance classes (8 months)? Also, introducing another TLE server will only further hurt the population on the live servers, not to mention the current TLE server. LOL…….sigh

Benj

I know they’re calling it a TLE server (and it really is), but this feels catered to the Race to Trakanon crowd. The server will automatically unlock new expacs every 12 weeks and provide account-wide rewards for completing Heritage Quests. It’s too early to say how well it will play out, but it feels more like a limited time event.

Griffonlady

That it does., Sounds like a hybrid between the two, just a long event (39 weeks? nearly 10 months?… more depending on weather or not they count the adventure packs/ campaigns. 2-ish years if they count every GU, but I’m gonna assume they mean just true Expansions… except AOM might not count (… shouldn’t count! XD) .
I wonder if it will stay as a regular server when it catches up to live, or be absorbed into a server? (been wondering that about the first TLE server, actually…)

Griffonlady

Actually,i I bumped into a lot of people that came back to the game because of the news of the new server types, but stayed to play on live. That’s the beauty of event servers. They don’t last long, and when they are done, people go to the live servers because the only goodies they get to keep from the event server is now on a live server. (also, some of the returnees made friends during events and made new toons on that person’s regular server.)
So new types of servers are actually good for the game. :\ It’s about as close to advertising as I’ve seen in a few years, or at least, since they closed the “refer a friend” program. (Wish they’d open a new one, or bring back the old one. Lots of people want to know how to get my white lion mount and Hall of Champions house, and I can’t give them to them or help them get them. >.< That sucks!)

Amaitae

Feldon

Noctew

Not all of them systems designers, to be fair. But you’re right: at the moment it would probably mainly be the work of Caith and Fyreflyte, and with everything else they have to work on for the expansion, they won’t be able to do a massive revamp like GU13 where literally everything changed.

But they don’t have to. They’ll “just” have to make class abilities like buffs and debuffs worth casting again (why cast a 3000 point short time debuff when you could cast a 300 million damage spell instead) and tweak some modifiers. Still a lot of work, but manageable.

Necromancer

Gimme a true box TLE server that completely stops unlocking either in Rise of Kunark or the Shadow Odyssey and I’d consider jumping back in. I’ll be subbing anyway since the original EverQuest just announced a true box PoP locked TLE server.

Quelaag

In other words they’re going to try to stretch out two weeks worth of content by forcing you to grind 10 agonizingly slow levels. I’m not buying the new expansion so I guess it doesn’t bother me, but I’d hate to have to grind those levels.

Griffonlady

Same! XD Well, that and the one-per-character house and other goodies. .. And the new places to explore, and new items to craft, and stuff to decorate with. XD I just love new expansions in general! ^_^

Artanthos

Thait

Who cares? If someone wants to waste their money, and they don’t consider it a waste, why should it bother me or anyone else? The game has had level increases from the start, it’s one of the more interesting parts of the game.

Neurology

Revekk

It’s still going to be impossible for anyone to come back despite the crate of gear and the 100 boost. We’d be 2 levels of spell effectiveness behind, not have the new AA, not have the epic 2… no one would want you to raid with them. It would take so many many months just to catch up!

Thait

EQ3orGoAway

Honestly I’m torn. I left EQ2 due to crappy class balance, not having the scout eth adorns and having to do all those factions for the epic 2.0 again. Now I’m forced to decide if I should complete all those factions for a fifth time to complete my epic 2.0 or just walk away from the game forever. I’m leaning toward the latter. They’ve forced me to switch classes too many times and as a result I have to do all those stupid faction quests again. No thanks. Cya all in BDO and hopefully one day in Ashes of Creation (former EQ devs version of EQ3).

Amaitae

Benj

Why exactly do you need to complete all of the factions for epic 2.0 again? A good portion of this article is about how we never have to do those more than once now. Alts will be able to use an item that takes care of all factions needed for epic 2.0. I just got mine on my main and was not looking forward to doing it on my alt who needed even more factions. If you’ve already completed four 2.0 quest lines, I salute you. You clearly have more dedication to video games than I do.

I love your name by the way. I wonder how many people were shouting for EQ2 back in 2003.

EQ3orGoAway

I think you misunderstood what I was saying. I have not done epic 2.0 on any of my characters. Since launch I’ve played pretty much every class. Most of them for an entire expansion. While they were my main for that expansion I did all the faction quests, Great Divide questline, etc. I have since changed mains and invested all my time into deity. they removed othimir faction coins and all the other crap I need for my epic 2.0. If I play a character that already has the faction I will lose all of my deity grind time, ascension XP and RL money spent on ascension scrolls. I’m not going to do that. And I’ll be damned if I’m going to complete that old ass content for a 6th or 7th time just to get the 2.0. I’m done. I refuse to do that content again.

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